Hi Barry
I witnessed it. I was ambling up the road and looking carefully for blackberries, without success. It's a fairly busy road for walkers and all but the small late sour ones had gone. I hadn't even meant to be there but got caught up in a movement of 120 cows, which brought everything to a pause because they do it at their pace. Fell into conversation with the herdsman and then with another chap coming up behind; and, when the herdsman turned off, we continued walking and talking. It was only when we got to the sea, that I realised I had just followed him! It was ok. I was also just following my nose
Then he asked the time and rushed off to meet his wife!
I sat on a rock. Then I walked back, mentally blackberrying.
It was the bird caught my attention, and I was starting to think how poorly I could describe it. By which time I was so close I decided to stop to keep it there. I'm pretty sure I saw a similar bird in Cumrbia, on a hedge there - though in this case it's a hedge made of granite covered in green growth.
I was struck by its confidence. LIke a robin in the way it let me approach and very unexpected away from town.
And during this very small parcel of time, it had been studying the prey. It adjusted its position a little and I saw what it was after.
I am quite capable of making things up or getting them from books; but this was a sighting
I was struck by the transformation in a moment. The spider was smashed up and hanging both sides of the beak, moving a bit. The bird seemed to pause before completing the operation, possibly because of my proximity. I think I was writing the poem as I saw it all happen.
Until then I had no snapshot poem and had been thinking of the ridiculousness of the situation. I was in an area of special scientific interest also an area of outstanding natural beauty (both official designations) etc etc. There was so much one could write about for 50 years without moving
And I was thinking of *moments, wondering how long before this bird would be wiped out by its own predator... I was thinking of the mechanism of it, and the increase of that effect into a seeming mechanicity because _their_ faces are not _our_ faces etc etc
everything changed, nothing changed
and the poem changed a lot quite rapidly
I had not *intended the reading you put into it. maybe it's there! the sky is parcelled out high density by birds of prey and the bird may well be dead. It almost certainly soon will be
I had a sense I had done what I could to get that sense of everything killing everything, of everything being doomed - I had rejected an image of drafts playing because there was no intelligence there
Nevertheless,
squelching
>both sides of a half-closed beak
was an attempt to describe seeing a living creature broken across and in a bird's beak
Best answer I can give, I think
Thank you for noticing the poem
Lawrence
-----Original Message-----
From: Barry Alpert <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Thursday, September 22, 2005 3:33 AM
Subject: Re: [POETRYETC] snap - reformat
On Wed, 21 Sep 2005 21:46:49 +0100, Lawrence Upton
<[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>a brightly-coloured bird
>snaps a reddish spider
>from its web among rotting berries;
>
>the silk is broken, disrupted;
>the food is disabled, squelching
>both sides of a half-closed beak
>
>neither bird nor animal shows emotion
>========================================================================
I've read this a number of times with admiration, Lawrence. Did you
observe the incident or its aftermath? I like the way in which you suggest
that both the arachnid and the bird expired (or will do so), if I'm
reading "squelching/both sides . . ." appropriately. Barry Alpert
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